Wendell Berry and me on love and hate
You think I have a crowbar in my heart?
“People generally suppose that they don’t understand one another very well, and that is true; they don’t. But some things they communicate easily and fully. Anger and contempt and hatred leap from one heart to another like fire in dry grass. The revelations of love are never complete or clear, not in this world. Love is slow and accumulating, and no matter how large or high it grows, it falls short. Love comprehends the world, though we don’t comprehend it. But hate comes off in slices, clear and whole — self-explanatory, you might say. You can hate people completely and kill them in an instant.”
~Wendell Berry, in Jayber Crow
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedmetal love
i used to love you with a reckless, trusting love
until you said that thing that made the steel
containment doors of my heart come crashing down
now i am on the inside and you are on the outside
“try to pry them open with a crowbar!”
i hear your muffled voice
you think i have a crowbar in my heart??
in a similar but opposite
way the birds outside my skylight
wake me every morning with their song
they are outside and i am inside
but they know nothing of metal fear and conditional love
they are not waiting for me
to lose ten pounds or start dressing stylishly
they neither sow nor reap
but the things they can pry open
with their tiny beaks would astound you
my closed heart is nothing to them
i get up and go outside
almost every day
~From my poetry collection, Open Things